Sobhandeb faces action, party still wary

Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has not taken it very lightly, especially after the veteran legislator was asked not to go public with his dissent. Inttuc national president Subrata Mukherjee has already conveyed Mamata's word to Sobhandeb, eliciting an equally curt response. "I have packed my bags. I am ready to leave whenever the party asks me to," said Sobhandeb.

With action imminent, senior Trinamool leaders are now working overtime to lessen the impact. Sobhandeb, sources indicate, may lose his post of chief whip. He is tipped to be replaced by Tapas Roy, overtaking another contender Asoke Deb.

Party national general secretary Mukul Roy, state president Subrata Bakshi, parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee and Mukherjee held several meetings on Monday on the issue. Roy refused to comment, saying: "If there is any problem it will be resolved within the party."

However, Chatterjee's apparent frustration on the Sobhandeb issue was a giveaway. "Whatever we'd done on it appears undone by him (Sobhandeb)," he said, adding that he and Subrata Mukherjee had spoken to Sobhandeb twice on the issue.

While these meetings didn't veer towards a solution, they had repeatedly urged Sobhandeb to keep quiet and avoid further embarrassment to Trinamool.

But a decision is not going to be easy, either. On a day Sobhandeb's fate was being deliberated, education minister Bratya Basu said in the assembly: "When I was informed about it (the November 27 assault on Sobhandeb in Calcutta University), I immediately requested the CU vice-chancellor to form a disciplinary committee to investigate the matter. The committee will take action irrespective of political colour. The report will be submitted. You will see (what action is taken)."

When Basu was asked if those who attacked Sobhandeb - a rival faction of the Trinamool - would be arrested, he reminded the Left legislators of the fate of former CU VC Santosh Bhattacharya.

Leader of the opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra tried to expose this contradictory position of the Trinamool. "The minister says action will be taken. Yet nothing is being done although there is an FIR on it. I had also urged the Speaker to inquire into it, after all he (Sobhandeb) is a member of the assembly and an important office bearer too," Mishra told reporters later.

Union minister of state Adhir Chowdhury was more direct. "We will welcome Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay (in Congress) with open arms. I know him, he is a very respectable leader," he said in Dakshineshwar.

Weighing heavily on the Trinamool leadership is another day's development. Manmatha Ranjan Biswas, who is accused in Sobhandeb's FIR, triggered the defection of 75 supporters of the Congress-backed Intuc union in CU to the Trinamool-propped Sara Bangla Trinamool Sikhabandhu Samiti.

Biswas is the vice-president of this organisation and also its CU convener. Ever since Mukul Roy formed this unit, its membership has touched 500 in CU alone, overtaking Sobhandeb's All Bengal University Employees Association (ABUEA).

Sobhandeb refused to comment on the controversy but he is learnt to have bared his angst before senior party colleagues. "I had only said which the chief minister says publicly. The media has only used some excerpts of the hour-long speech. Should Mamata Banerjee hear it herself, she will only applaud me," he reportedly said.

Trinamool realizes that there will be many repercussions if it's the end of the road for a leader of Sobhandeb's stature - he is the very first MLA of Trinamool and has set up 457 trade unions statewide. And it was perhaps this that prompted senior ministers and MLAs to queue up before his assembly chamber urging him not to do "anything in haste."